I'm losing Hard Drive space even though I'm not downloading anything new onto
my computer. Backed up data and and removed to make space, but within a few
days my Hard Drive will fill up again. Don't know if my Hard Drive is
failing, it's infected, or what is causing this. Wondering if there is any
way to check the Hard Drive integrity or to see what is actually eating up
all the memory.

Replid to [Vambo]s message :
-----------------------------------------------------------
> I'm losing Hard Drive space even though I'm not downloading anything
> new onto my computer. Backed up data and and removed to make space,
> but within a few days my Hard Drive will fill up again. Don't know if
> my Hard Drive is failing, it's infected, or what is causing this.
> Wondering if there is any way to check the Hard Drive integrity or to
> see what is actually eating up all the memory.

I would suggest a slightly different approach to that suggested for restore
points.

To increase you free space on your C select Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp, More Options, System Restore and
remove all but the latest System Restore points? Restore points can be quite
large.

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore on
your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right
click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore.
Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this time find the
slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get
to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

I followed instructions from you and Ayush and was able to recover about 2.5
GB of space - much appreciated. When I went to defrag my disk, I believe I
accidently found out what is eating up my hard drive. Got a message that a
bunch of files couldn't be defragged.
The files are the following:
\windows\system32\dlg/temp\002.part
and various other parts to 009.part. The smallest file has 77 fragments at a
size of 325 MB, the largest with 14,072 fragments at a size of 15.44 GB. Also
got a file \windows\system32\dlgincoming\PulpFic...
Hopefully someone knows what these files are and if and how they can be
removed and prevented from reappearing on my hard drive.

Vambo wrote:
> I'm losing Hard Drive space even though I'm not downloading
> anything new onto my computer. Backed up data and and removed to
> make space, but within a few days my Hard Drive will fill up again.
> Don't know if my Hard Drive is failing, it's infected, or what is
> causing this. Wondering if there is any way to check the Hard Drive
> integrity or to see what is actually eating up all the memory.

Vambo wrote:
> I followed instructions from you and Ayush and was able to recover
> about 2.5 GB of space - much appreciated. When I went to defrag my
> disk, I believe I accidently found out what is eating up my hard
> drive. Got a message that a bunch of files couldn't be defragged.
> The files are the following:
> \windows\system32\dlg/temp\002.part
> and various other parts to 009.part. The smallest file has 77
> fragments at a size of 325 MB, the largest with 14,072 fragments at
> a size of 15.44 GB. Also got a file
> \windows\system32\dlgincoming\PulpFic...
> Hopefully someone knows what these files are and if and how they
> can be removed and prevented from reappearing on my hard drive.

Verify you have cleaned up everything else first...

If you are comfortable with the stability of your system, you can delete the
uninstall files for the patches that Windows XP has installed..

http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm

Do you have hidden and system files visible?
How's your system restore settings?
Used Disk Cleanup?
Is hibernate turned on and do you use that feature?
Uninstalled unnecessary applications lately?
Moved things to external media?

Other ways to free up space..

SequoiaView
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

DX Hog Hunt
http://www.dvxp.com/en/Downloads.aspx

JDiskReport
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html

Those can help you visually discover where all the space is being used.

You can use an application that scans your system for log files and
temporary files and use that to get rid of those:

Ccleaner (Free!)
http://www.ccleaner.com/

You can run Disk Cleanup - built into Windows XP - to erase all but yuor
latest restore point and cleanup even more "loose files"..

How to use Disk Cleanup
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

You can turn off hibernation if it is on and you don't use it..

When you hibernate your computer, Windows saves the contents of the system's
memory to the hiberfil.sys file. As a result, the size of the hiberfil.sys
file will always equal the amount of physical memory in your system. If you
don't use the hibernate feature and want to recapture the space that Windows
uses for the hiberfil.sys file, perform the following steps:

- Start the Control Panel Power Options applet (go to Start, Settings,
Control Panel, and click Power Options).
- Select the Hibernate tab, clear the "Enable hibernation" check box, then
click OK; although you might think otherwise, selecting Never under the
"System hibernates" option on the Power Schemes tab doesn't delete the
hiberfil.sys file.
- Windows will remove the "System hibernates" option from the Power Schemes
tab and delete the hiberfil.sys file.

You can control how much space your System Restore can use...

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the System Restore tab.
3. Highlight one of your drives (or C: if you only have one) and click on
the "Settings" button.
4. Change the percentage of disk space you wish to allow.. I suggest 5% or
higher.
5. Click OK.. Then Click OK again.

You can control how much space your Temporary Internet Files can utilize...

Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to a
size between 128MB and 512MB..

- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section, do the
following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the "Amount of disk space to use:" to
something between 128MB and 512MB. (Betting it is MUCH larger right
now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to "Delete all offline contents"
(the checkbox) and click OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10
minutes or more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer, re-open Internet
Explorer.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Gerry Cornell wrote:
> Vambo
>
> 002.part files appear to have a connection to this link:
> http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/general.cgi?l=1&ga=1&rm=download
>
> I think \PulpFic may from the same source but cannot be sure about
> that.
> I would send all to your Recycle Bin. Reboot and see whether there
> are any negative affects. If not empty the Recycle Bin.

In other words - someone has been using emule or similar applications to
download movies off the internet and this is an incomplete download of the
movie "Pulp Fiction" and probably other incomplete downloads.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Ok i noticed today that after i had installed a load of games and programs that i had lost about 50GB even though it all only was equivalent to like 10GB so i decided to investigate and it turns out that the system restore points were eating 40GB of my hard drive, i did have 370GB left and now i have 426GB after going into disk cleanup >> More Options and clearing restore points apart from most recent. So now is all good, I thought i would post this resolution as it may help someone in the future who was in the same position as me.
Thanks